


Red Noise

by Writernon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Community: sherlockbbc_fic, Control Issues, Cutting, Gen, Pre-Series, Self-Doubt, Self-Harm, Triggers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writernon/pseuds/Writernon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "Some days he just needs to bleed."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Warning: Graphic depiction of self-harm.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Noise

**Author's Note:**

> First posted [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5564.html?thread=19734716#t19734716) on the SherlockBBC_Fic Meme Dec. 29, 2010

The knife hits the desk with a clatter. It breaks the screaming rut of thought in his head for a moment, the noise, and he thinks for a second maybe tonight noise will be enough. Something loud, bombastic, headphones distorting the sound in favour of loud. But the circular thinking immediately starts again (wrong, mistake, assumed, wrong) and he knows what sort of night it's going to be.

It's an old knife, but not antique. Steel. He keeps it clean and sharp. The handle is loose, but he wants it that way; it adds a random factor, makes it easier to pass the results off as an accident, a trip through a hawthorn hedge instead of deliberately inflicted. Self-inflicted. As if anyone would care.

Mycroft would be angry if he knew Sherlock was still doing this, but with the drugs gone and the maelstrom still spinning, it's all that works.

It's summer, so not the arms.

Sherlock raises the hem of his shirt and lays the knife edge against his ribs. The skin twitches involuntarily at the light touch along the intercostal space, where if he pushed the blade all the way in it would slice through muscle, lung, viscera, unimpeded by bone. He holds the knife in his off hand, to increase the illusion of an accidental injury, not sure why he bothers. No one will see. No one will look.

He draws the blade across, from his right side under his arm, swooping up to his sternum. It barely stings, barely enough to feel, but it leaves a fine trail of red beading in its wake.

Once he had a different knife, a clasp knife, one he stropped on cobbles and bricks in filthy alleys, making burrs on the edge, contaminating the blade. The cuts from that were always felt, tearing more than slicing, reddening with infection afterward. The pain kept on past the initial sting, throbbing and hot. Septicemia set in once at the worst point; he'd spent a week in a condemned and abandoned flat on a filthy mattress, vomiting and feverish. The scars of that time were hidden from everyone but himself.

Mycroft disapproved. He didn't understand. Sherlock's brother had his outlets, coping mechanisms. Mycroft didn't understand because it was something he couldn't control. 

The thin line of red drops isn't enough. Sherlock lines up the blade again, pressing harder.

This time he feels it, the pain sings along his nerves as his skin parts under the blade. Blood trickles down, should have gotten a towel, black towel that wouldn't show a stain, stupid. He doesn't pause before resetting the knife to the next space between his ribs, blood from the new cut trickling down into the first, skin burning.

Controlled now, he sets down the knife; he doesn't want to stop, but can. His head isn't shrieking anymore, though his memories are heaving, a turgid mass of regret and recrimination. Blood is running down the right side of his chest, belly and hip, soaking into his trousers and pants. He lets the shirt fall back into place, where it wicks up blood as he watches. Red spreads slowly into white fabric like water seeping up in an artesian well.

It doesn't silence the maelstrom of noise and self-doubt, but it dulls the clamour enough to think again.


End file.
